Tag: cell phone

Alabama lawmakers this year have approved a statewide gas tax increase, told sheriffs they can’t keep money meant for feeding jail inmates and said they want a shot at the U.S. Supreme Court with the nation’s most restrictive abortion ban.

The Legislature has two to three weeks remaining in its 2019 session, and a lot of legislating is left to do. Still on the table are proposals for a lottery, the state’s budgets, education bills and medical marijuana, to name just the tip of the iceberg.

For a look at some of the major bills that are pending and what might get punted to a special session later this year, Read more.

A vote in the Alabama House of Representatives on a bill to prohibit the use of hand-held cell phones and other devices was delayed this week, but the measure could go back before legislators next week. Read more.

A bill to prohibit the use of hand-held cell phones and other devices while driving was supposed to get a vote in the Alabama House on Thursday, but in an unusual move, the sponsor effectively killed his legislation.

Rep. Alan Farley, R-McCalla, said on the House floor that a new version of the bill is sponsored by Rep. K.L. Brown, R-Jacksonville.

“He’s going to do a fantastic job and that legislation is going to save lives,” Farley said. Later, he said he won’t comment on why he removed his name from the legislation until after it becomes law.

MONTGOMERY — Legislation seeking to curb distracted driving by making it illegal to hold a cell phone while operating a vehicle could be in position to pass the Alabama House of Representatives as soon as next week.

Under the bill, drivers would still be allowed to use Bluetooth and other hands-free connections for phone calls and interact with vehicle devices such as back-up cameras.

State law already prohibits the act of texting while driving, but bill sponsors say an outright ban on holding electronic communication devices will be more enforceable for police. Also, increased penalties for violations will help drivers think twice before texting or tweeting, lawmakers say.

House Bill 6, dubbed “Cici’s Law,” is being sponsored by Rep. Allen Farley, R-McCalla. He was motivated to develop the bill when he heard about a local teenager, Camryn “Cici” Callaway being killed in a distracted driving accident in February 2018. Read more.

About News

Whenever White House adviser Kellyanne Conway appears on a TV news or talk show, I switch the channel to more useful programming, such as the Home Shopping Network selling something in which I have no interest. Conway, who traffics in distortion and lies, is among the media circuit regulars who has spawned industry debate as to whether some people deserve an interview and appearance ban. A combative December appearance by Conway on Chris Cuomo’s CNN news talk show, for instance, produced a live, long and lively argument between Cuomo and CNN news anchor Don Lemon.

A more recent repeat of the same issue, but involving a more offensive individual, occurred two weeks ago when conservative commentator and author Ben Shapiro, who could less politely be described as a hateful troll, was aggressively questioned by an interviewer on a BBC politics show. Shapiro, who unlike Conway does not advise a national decision maker (but who is popular enough that he filled the lecture room at a February appearance at the University of Alabama), abruptly walked out of the interview on live TV. Nesrine Malik, a columnist for The Guardian, wrote: “No matter how much those with regressive, prejudiced or simply dishonest views are challenged, it is pointless if they are constantly provided a venue. It is the platform that legitimizes them, not how they perform when they are on that platform.”

Abortion Fallout

Updated — Two IT companies have canceled or put on hold discussions about moving to Birmingham because of the abortion ban signed into law last week, according to Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin.

Woodfin told author Diane McWhorter about the changes for an opinion piece published Saturday on CNN.

McWhorter wrote that Woodfin “confirmed to me today that the abortion ban affected two IT companies considering moves to the city – one canceled outright, while the other ‘put the brakes on negotiations.’” Read more.

Jefferson County Commission

Residents of southern Jefferson County could have been forgiven if they doubted that the widening of Morgan Road would ever take place. After all, the project has been the subject of discussions for more than two decades.

But action at today’s Jefferson County Commission meeting brings the long-discussed project one step closer to reality. Commissioners authorized a construction funding agreement with the Alabama Department of Transportation for nearly $2.4 million to begin widening the road from Interstate 459 to the Shelby County line at South Shades Crest Road. Read more.

Census Bureau

The Birmingham-Hoover MSA grew by just 2,116 people in 2017-2018. The area ranked 251th out of 383 MSAs in terms of population growth rate, according to an analysis of census data conducted by the Public Research Council of Alabama.

The Huntsville MSA led the state in percentage of population growth, ranking it 64th in the country. It added 6,952 people to its ranks in the period.

Other large metros in the state fell below Birmingham-Hoover in terms of growth, with Mobile ranked 324th and Montgomery 327th. However, those two areas lost population in 2017-2018, as did some other metro areas in the U.S. Read more.

Legislature

The $35 million Alabama needs for a federal health care program for low- and mid-income children isn’t in either of the state’s two budgets progressing through the Alabama Legislature. Lawmakers appear to disagree about whether the 2020 funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program belongs in the General Fund, which funds Medicaid and other public health expenses, or the education budget, as Gov. Kay Ivey suggested. Read more.

BirminghamWatch’s Nick Patterson looked at the importance of the CHIP program before it was renewed by Congress last year.

Tariffs

Tomatoes will likely soon get pricier. The Trump administration plans to impose a 17.5 percent tariff on tomatoes imported from Mexico. Those could take effect this week. Florida growers, who once dominated the market for off-season tomatoes, lobbied for the tariffs But today more than half the fresh tomatoes sold in the U.S. come from Mexico. Many Alabama growers and consumers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Read more.

Measles

The baby in St. Clair County believed to have had Alabama’s first case of measles has tested negative for the disease.

The Alabama Department of Public Health had reported that the baby had a presumptive positive measles case after initial tests run by a commercial lab returned a positive result.

But when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a more detailed test, the baby was diagnosed as not having the disease, according to a press release issued by the state health department. Read more.

Jefferson County Commission

David Denard said overflow from Jefferson County’s wastewater treatment plant will never get down to zero. But the director of the county’s department of environmental services told commissioners at their committee meeting today that his department is trying to get as close to that mark as it can.

Birmingham

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said Tuesday that he opposes the proposed relocation of a concrete plant from downtown to the city’s Five Points West community, and he called for the City Council to rezone the property in question to prevent future industrial use.

Last week, the council voted to oppose Sherman Industries’ announced plans to move its concrete batch facility from its current address of 1100 Second Ave. S. to 3240 Fayette Avenue, near the Birmingham CrossPlex Village. Read more.

CongressionalWatch

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives spent part of its week debating proposals to lift some restrictions on health insurance requirements, mostly having to do with whether coverage of pre-existing conditions must be covered.

Alabama’s Republican representatives voted in ways that would allow the coverage reductions and the Democratic representative voted in ways that would not. More health care bills are expected to come up in the House this week.

Here’s how area members of Congress voted on major issues during the legislative week ending May 10. Read more.

Food Deserts

The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to approve allocating $500,000 to a new “Healthy Food Initiative,” which officials said would give incentivizes for new grocery stores to move into the city.

The creation of that fund is separate from the pending Healthy Food Ordinance, which is aimed at increasing healthy food options in the city’s food deserts through measures such as limiting the expansion of dollar stores and loosening restrictions on grocers and farmers’ markets.

The two changes would work together to attract new grocery stores to the area, said Josh Carpenter, the city’s director of innovation and economic opportunity. Read more.

BirminghamWatch

Updated — Wayne Wooley’s question cut to the heart of the Sewer Town Hall gathering Monday night at Regions Field.

“What did I do? What did my church do to deserve all this?” the 72-year-old Crestwood South resident asked. “Tell me why you’re putting all this burden on us? I’m on a fixed income. That’s to me illegal.”

Two and a half hours proved not to be long enough for the event, sponsored by County Commissioner Lashunda Scales.

More than 400 people attended the meeting, asking questions and listening to answers from Jefferson County officials about rising sewer rates that have left many ratepayers, including those on fixed incomes, questioning how they will shoulder the costs.

Reviews were mixed as people left the ballpark. Some were happy to have had an opportunity to ask questions and to have their voices heard. Many were displeased with responses.

Gov. Kay Ivey

Gov. Kay Ivey, speaking Thursday morning in Homewood, pointed to bi-partisanship and teamwork as the key to the successful passage of the Rebuild Alabama Act. The new law enacts increases in fuel taxes to provide funding for transportation infrastructure improvements statewide.

“We’ve seen the absolute tremendous team effort over the successful passage of my Rebuild Alabama Act and I just tell you, it took a truly strong team effort throughout this state to get that done,” Ivey told the Rotary Club of Homewood. Read more.

Birmingham City Council

The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday evening to formally oppose plans to relocate a concrete plant from downtown Birmingham to the Five Points West community, citing public health concerns. Read more.

BirminghamWatch

BirminghamWatch’s Hank Black was inducted into the Wall of Fame for the University of Alabama’s Office of Student Media during an event April 26.

Black, who covers the environment for BW, was honored for his role as editor in chief of the Crimson White during one of the most turbulent years in the university’s history. Black was editor in 1963, when Vivian Malone and James Hood became the first two black students to successfully enroll at UA, following Gov. George Wallace’s infamous “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door.” Read more.

PARCA Survey

The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama in a new survey said Alabamians favor supervising non-violent criminals in the community and giving them more rehabilitation opportunities rather than sending them to prison.

In the ”Public Opinion Survey: 2019 Edition,” released Wednesday, a slight majority of residents surveyed, 58 percent, oppose building new prisons. Almost that many, 54 percent, thought only violent criminals should be held in the state’s prisons.

As in previous PARCA surveys, Alabamians ranked education as the most important service the state provides, followed by health care, public safety and highways. Read more.

City of Birmingham

Applications are now open for A Citizen’s Experience, a new initiative from the city of Birmingham designed to promote civic engagement. The free, seven-week program is slated to begin in June and is open only to Birmingham residents who are 18 years old or older. Applications are being accepted this month. Read more.

Higher Education

A smaller portion of new high school graduates is having to take remedial classes when they first go to college, according to a PARCA report on data from the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.

The rate of students needing remediation is dropping even though high schools have pushed to raise the graduation rate and are sending more students to college than they have in recent years. Read more.

Alabama Prisons

Federal officials released a report Wednesday alleging conditions in the state’s male prisons violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, along with three U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the State of Alabama issued the findings. Read more.

Crime

Violence is the newest strategic focus for the Jefferson County Department of Health. During Tuesday’s annual State of Health in Jefferson County address, Dr. Mark Wilson said the department added the issue in response to increasing rates of homicide.

“It (violence) isn’t something that our health department has devoted resources to in the past,” Wilson said, “but it is clearly a public health problem.” Read more.

Birmingham Police

The Birmingham Police Department will soon have two new high-tech crime-fighting tools at its disposal. On Tuesday, the Birmingham City Council approved nearly $75,000 for two law enforcement software systems, PredPol and Assisted Patrol Bait Systems, which are designed to increase patrol efficiency and crack down on repeat offenders, respectively. Read more.

Charter Schools

The Alabama Public Charter School Commission approved plans for a new charter school in Birmingham on Monday. The Birmingham school board rejected the i3 Academy application in January, and school organizers appealed to the state.

The next step is for i3 Academy and the state to negotiate a contract for the school. It will outline expectations for academic performance, school operations and finances, school officials said.

Tommy Bice, former state education superintendent, is part of the team working to open i3 Academy as a K-5 charter school in Woodlawn in 2020. Read more.

Health

A report out Tuesday published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute ranks the health of all 67 counties in Alabama. This year, Shelby County comes in first. Jefferson County ranks in the top third. The report compares differences based on location as well as race and ethnicity. Read more.

Hoover Schools

Ali Massoud, a 2011 graduate of Hoover High School, says he was disappointed at a video depicting white students who attend Hoover schools using the N-word and anti-Semitic slurs. But he wasn’t surprised.

“I think a lot of students of color who have been through the Hoover High School system have seen small aggressions on display, and so the fact that this was caught on camera shows the rest of the world that those things are not just in our minds” Massoud says. “They are real and they are happening.”

Massoud and others want to know what school officials plan to do about it. Recently, Massoud started a petition demanding Hoover City Schools take meaningful action to address racism within the system. Read more.

Doug Jones

The Klansmen who bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, killing four black girls, did not face justice for years. In 1977, then-Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley won a conviction against Robert Chambliss for his role in the attack. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that two others were tried and convicted. Senator Doug Jones led those later prosecutions and writes about it in his memoir “Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Cvil Rights.” Read more.

State Prisons

The Alabama Legislature will face tough choices this year on solving problems of the state’s crowded, obsolete and under-funded prison system, and the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama is preparing a series of briefings to address “a system in crisis.”

PARCA, a non-profit organization that does nonpartisan research on issues facing state and local governments in Alabama, outlined problems that it said could lead to a federal takeover of the prisons system if they are not solved.

Gov. Kay Ivey has proposed the construction of three new men’s prisons at a cost of $950 million as one step toward dealing with the issues of crowding, health care and crumbling facilities. Read more.

Coal Mining

Four years ago the Black Warrior Riverkeeper roused public opinion to keep the Shepherd Bend coal mine from opening. Now the river protection advocacy organization is warning of another proposed mining operation – this one three miles upstream on the Mulberry Fork from Shepherd Bend.

What’s called the No.5 Mine is in the Walker County community of Dovertown, near the city of Cordova. Mays Mining Inc. would operate the mine at a former industrial site that was left with contaminated groundwater, according to Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke. Read more.

Economy

U.S. Steel Corporation will restart work on its electric arc furnace in Fairfield. The $215 million initiative will replace the former blast furnace at Fairfield Works. The project started almost four years ago, but was put on hold due to poor market demand for steel. Ty West, editor-in-chief of the Birmingham Business Journal, says this is good news. Read more.

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